Agile Misadventures: How Not to Mix Agility with Architectural Sanity

Welcome to Episode 14!

Hey there, agile architects! This week on EA Struggles, we’re diving headfirst into the Scrum board… and hitting our heads on a Kanban column.

The Main Struggle: Agility by Name, Chaos by Practice

Meet Bryan, an Enterprise Architect turned "Agile Coach by accident." After one inspirational TED Talk and a whiteboard session fueled by oat milk lattes, his company declared itself agile.

Except now, Bryan spends his days watching Product Owners rebrand technical debt as "strategic backlog" and developers hotfixing in real time while sprint demos are still running.

He tried to introduce a Target Architecture once—got labeled a "waterfall enthusiast."
He asked about capacity planning—was handed a deck titled “Velocity: Believe in the Vibes.”

His TOGAF roadmap? Buried under 87 Jira tickets marked “Won’t Fix.”

TOGAF to the Rescue (in Story Points)

TOGAF doesn't hate Agile. In fact, it loves anything with structure and iteration. But it also believes that just because you can deliver fast doesn't mean you should deliver confused.

The Architecture Development Method (ADM) is inherently iterative. TOGAF gets the sprint thing—it just wants you to pause before you break prod.

Want agility with sanity? Try applying Phases B through D before shipping something your infra team has to babysit for eternity.

Educational Twist: Architecting Agility with TOGAF

• Architecture Vision (Phase A): Align Agile delivery with long-term strategy—not just a cool demo.

• Opportunities & Solutions (Phase E): Use this to guide backlog grooming with real architectural intent.

• Governance: Agile doesn't mean anarchic. Keep Architecture Contracts active and lightweight.

Humor in Diagrams

Share and Connect

Is your agile team running faster than your architecture can keep up?
Send us your favorite agile horror stories—we’ll backlog the best ones (and actually read them).

Next Week’s Tease

The Compliance Circus. Step right up! 
Witness the daring audit escapes, the juggling of frameworks, and the magical disappearance of accountability.